How to Make Paper Flowers

We’re coming into the last weeks of winter, and it’s almost time to pack those gloves and snow-boots back up.

With lighter days and the flora beginning to green again, we should start brightening up our homes with our favorite springtime colors and vibrancy!

Flowers and plants make a great addition to any living space, but they don’t always make a great addition to everyone’s “things to remember” list.

It seems many of us forget about our other organic counterparts in the room and fail to tend to them regularly.

But rather than sacrificing a room’s aesthetic beauty only because you’ve neglected to water the roses again, why not try your hand in learning how to make flowers out of paper?

It’s easier than you think.

How to Make a Paper Flower:

Like with everything, there’s no one way to make a paper flower.

Whether they are roses, tulips, peonies, or daffodil wreaths (just to name a few), there are a multitude of options in learning how to make them.

Even the paper used varies among the different types of flower— cupcake liners, tissue paper, cardboard paper, coffee filters, and even egg cartons.

Many arrangements look gorgeous enough to be considered real. If that’s not the case, their vibrancy and arrangement far remove them from appearing to be shoddy work.

For our purposes, and as an introduction, we are going to keep it easy and focus on how to make tissue paper flowers.

These sit on the simpler side of the papercraft spectrum and you can make quite a few in just a couple of hours.

By: Karine (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 licence)

These flowers only require a few craft ingredients, all of which can be purchased for under a few dollars at your local craft store.

They also make great bouquets and can brighten up a home, office, or serve as a cute and thoughtful Easter gift.

Don’t forget – wedding season is also on the horizon, and a cost-effective option is always preferable.

What You’ll Need

Scissors

Tissue paper

Pipe cleaners or flexible wire

A container/vase for the finished flowers

How to Make Tissue Paper Flowers

To begin, stack three sheets of the tissue paper on top of each other. Arrange the sheets so they lay portrait style (horizontally, not vertically) in front of you. Taking the end of one side of the papers, fold them over about one inch down their length. Flip the stack over and do the same, in the opposite direction. Continue this folding process, one inch at a time, until your paper stack looks like an accordion or one of those hand fans you may have made in class.

Fold your accordion stack in half. Taking the pipe cleaner, fold about an inch and a half of it around the center, twisting the end of it together to hold the paper in place. There, now you have the beginnings of your flower and stem. From there, take two more pipe cleaners and do the same to them, tying them about six inches from the center at opposite ends of the folded paper stack. It should be noted that, if you want your flowers to have identical color schemes (based on the colors of paper you chose), place the stems going the same direction. If you’d like alternating colors, place the stems in opposite directions.

Now, cut the paper into identical sections, about six inches, with the pipe cleaners at the center of each section. You can wiggle your pipe cleaners more toward the center of the sections, if necessary. Go on to round the edges of your flowers with a pair of scissors, to give them that petal look.

Finally, holding the stem of your flower, open up the accordion flower and begin pulling the top layer of paper straight up, all around the flower. Be gentle with the paper; it is tissue and can rip easily. From here, take the middle layer and pull it toward the first layer, while pulling the third and final layer down. Flip the flower upside down and run your fingers from the end of the stem, up to the edge of the flower, gently smoothing the bottom layer up toward the other two. Voilà!

From there, you can repeat the process until you have as many paper flowers as you want. If you’d like to present these and spice up a room, set a few in a vase, bending their stems slightly outward.

Place a few more in a second layer and do the same to them before finally placing one or two flowers at the very top to bring together the entire bouquet.

It’s a good way to get the kids together on a rainy day and occupy them along with other activities.

The video below shows how to make paper Marigold flowers.

You’ll be the envy of your family and friends for reigning in rowdy children with only a few materials, because you know how to make flowers from paper and a little imagination!